Ms Jane Howard:

I am joined today by our chief financial officer and deputy CEO, Mr. Paul Stanley, our director of human resources, Ms Derval McDonagh, and our director of corporate affairs, Ms Elizabeth Arnett. I understand we are constrained in respect of time, so rather than read the full statement I will emphasise six points.

In the context of this decision, there will be an orderly, phased withdrawal that will take place over several years. There will be no immediate change for customers, with full banking services continuing across all channels for existing and new customers. We will not be closing any branches this year on the back of the announcements. There will be no new compulsory redundancy departures this year. We have announced a non-binding memorandum of understanding with AIB for the sale of the portfolio of performing commercial loans of about €4 billion and the transfer of colleagues who are wholly or mainly assigned to this loan book. We have also confirmed that we are in discussions with PTSB, among other strategic banking counterparties, regarding certain retail and SME assets, liabilities and operations. Our preference is to continue to focus our discussions with counterparties that can provide customers with full banking services in the Irish market.

The past five months have been very difficult and upsetting for our colleagues and our customers. The uncertainty that the review has brought, combined with the ongoing pandemic have been extremely challenging. Speculation appeared in the media in September and we were left in the difficult situation of not being able to update colleagues, which would be our preferred way of doing things, due to the fact that the review was under way and not completed and its outcome was uncertain. There was a requirement to conduct discussions in a manner that ensured commercial sensitivity and confidentiality. In the latter stages of the review process we were subject to additional restrictions that prevented us from discussing the review further until there was a board decision that could be publicly announced to the market.

I thank the members of the committee and we are now happy to take questions. I caution the members, however, that some matters that may be raised might be commercially sensitive and could impact on negotiations which are under way regarding the transfer of parts of our business. It would be more appropriate to discuss those aspects directly with the staff representatives.